November 30, 2013

A Note Of Thanks to My Students !

 
Free images from Google

Today I want to be thankful for all my students who visit our centre. I am eternally thankful to them for opening up their lives to me, trusting me, and sharing such intimate issues, hoping to find answer to their problems.  I hold these students with great love, kindness, sensitivity and feel privileged to have encountered them.
Sometimes it’s been an experience so divine, that it challenges me to give away my old traditional way of thinking, judging and leads me to open myself to new learning’s   every day of my life.
I have grown so much because of listening, for every student has been a gift adding value to my life, helping me understand not only them, but also myself. They have altered my perceptions so much that I am no longer the same person. 
I consider my workplace sacred because I meet God  here in my clients who come with gratitude, hope and spend some time with me, to reflect, think, talk issues, make choices, work on their thoughts,  make  changes in their behaviour, manage themselves and time and alter their  life styles, set goals in reaching their highest potential.
I find meaning in reaching out to them, and at the end of the day – when I meet myself at a quiet place; I know that I am making a small difference in the lives of my clients. Hence,  I look forward everyday for new experiences, that motivates me not only to be grateful but also helps me meet myself, and constantly redefines my identity.
So I continue my journey with gratitude, few more days the month ends, I am busy preparing for my exams… I took a break to write few lines and share my thoughts on gratitude…. Wish you a happy and a grateful day!








November 20, 2013

A letter of Gratitude to my Body

Free images from Google 

I stumbled upon a magazine called” infinithoughts” The cover page was attractive, so I just started flipping through the pages, I found an article on being grateful to our bodies, which was very interesting and inspiring too. The author explains, so often we take our bodies for granted.  At the end of the Para, the author encourages everyone to try writing a letter to their bodies. So this is an attempt I am making in writing a gratitude note to my body.

Dear Body,

I am a little nervous today to write this note to you, as this is my first letter to you in my life time. Being a grateful person I want to acknowledge your contribution to my life, since inception. You have been a great source of strength to me, highly friendly and extremely accommodative.  Despite the fact that I have been very careless, insensitive, and complacent to your signals.

free images from Google

You have always been very authentic and honest with me, telling me frankly what you liked and what you don’t like, you have done your best to keep me going, even if I was not listening to you. I filled  and stuffed you with unnecessary things, which you found it difficult to digest, and stored it where ever you found place to store the trash.

I neglected you so much, by not exercising, eating junk food  because I found it attractive and tasty. I used to clear up the plate of my kids, because I did not want to waste food. I took comfort in filling up my stomach whenever I was upset, disturbed and bored, instead of dealing with the issues that caused problem to my mind.  Thus increased my waist size, causing you discomfort, putting pressure on my heart, and turned you into a fat and obese body.

Free images from Google

Still you remained my best and close  friend, helping me with all that I wanted to do in my life – I could do all my work independently, taking care of the needs of my family, also could take up a career, and be involved in work that brought in meaning to my life. 

So often I failed in my commitments to you: I have promised so many times to eat healthy food, and to continue my walks, to meditate daily and to drink plenty of water only to fall back again to binge eating, lethargy and procrastination. 

Despite all this you have always been my great friend and very consistent in giving me the joy of being healthy and alive.  I travelled quite a distance in my life, making lot of mistakes, in understanding you and loving you.  Today I take a public pledge to honor you, love you, accept you and do everything for you till the end of my life. 

Thanks for being my body, and thank you for responding to me even now. I am beginning to feel the difference today, as I continue with my yoga class’s everyday (this 25th November, 2013 – it will be 3 months since I am regularly practicing yoga).

I have changed my diet and have started counting calories, with the help of my yoga classmates, and committed myself for preparing and eating healthy food to keep you happy and sound.  I am also meditating and reciting affirmations to appreciate your presence in my life, and have started taking a lot of water (I was told that we need to take water according to our weight –for every 25kgs 1 litre water is required, so accordingly we need to calculate and take that much).

Free Images from Google

Apart from all the above, I have learnt to keep my mind positive, and to look for the best in the worst situations in life, and live a life of Gratitude 24/7!!

My special thanks to Google for the lovely images, which was so very relevant for my post. 

I am filled with a lot of gratitude to you today!!

November 16, 2013

Gratitude – MY Way Of Life!

Courtesy : free images from Google
I dedicate this blog post to to all young people, who feel, there is nothing in life for them to live for, and nobody loves them and so there is nothing to be grateful for in life.

 I write this from my own experiences of meeting them, wherein they come in for counseling, as they are unable to deal with negative thought patterns.


I help them with restructuring their thought processes, by exploring their thoughts and teaching them to replace them with positive ones, and also provide and encourage them with affirmations for daily living.  

Along with this process, I also teach them to nurture gratitude, and many a times the students  do not know what to be grateful for, as they have conditioned their minds only to look at all those things that are not available for them in life.

One of the important things I make them do is to ask them to take a few deep breaths, and get them to do some deep breathing, then I make them focus on their breath, make them count and slowly shift their awareness to every part of the body that is functioning perfectly and teach them to say thanks for the Breath of life. That’s the beginning of their journey for learning the art of cultivating gratitude; beginning from breath/self and help them expand to other areas of life.

I have learnt to value every BREATH I TAKE,   and feel overwhelmed with gratitude to believe that I have been Breathing without any problem for more than half a century of my life. I don’t have any particular incident or a specific experience to trace when I began to be thankful.

Courtesy :free images from Google
As it has evolved over a period of time, wherein I learnt as a child in the early childhood days, to be thankful to God everyday as we said the family prayers together. My dad was very particular about saying thanks, and later on in school, my teachers taught me to say the golden words to say “sorry when we make a mistake, thank you when we receive something and please when we want something”

I found it made a lot of difference in my interactions, as I practiced these golden words, in all my relationships. One thing which I hung on is saying “Thank you” which became my focus, and I made sure to thank every time for everything. Gradually saying thanks also became part of my prayer, now it is just an auto response in myself, even before I bring the word to my mouth, my heart is already singing thanks and it happens when we constantly practice saying thanks every day for every small thing in our lives.

It not only keeps us happy, but also fills us with a lot of positive energy, making us persons who are productive in all aspects of life.  Gratitude shifts our focus on all the blessings that we have, helps us in valuing persons in our lives, so that we do not take them for granted.

courtesy: images from Google

An attitude of gratitude blocks us from negative thinking, which is like a disease, once we get it spreads making us unhappy, makes us compare our lives with others, saps our energy from within, keeps us from moving ahead, does not allow us to take responsibility.  On the other hand being grateful fills us with joy and bringing in love, laughter, cheerfulness and generosity to give back to the society, all that we have received freely in our lives.

My blog is also an expression of gratitude for all that I have received from generous souls in this life, and it is an attempt to remain in a state of gratitude and also live a life of gratitude.

I survived only with gratitude, the loss of my parents, a major accident that left my husband bed ridden, and the saddest part of my life has been the loss of my only son. I wept bitterly, grieved for long time, but never gave up because of the ONE BIG FACT IN MY LIFE i.e., Being GRATEFUL in every situation and specifically practicing gratitude for being ALIVE AND BREATHING.  

So each time I am disturbed or upset I sit in a relaxed position and take a few deep breaths – to remind myself that I am alive and breathing.



I am eternally grateful for my parents, who taught me to pray, and trust in God at all times, my brothers and sisters who shared their love and concern, my teachers who taught me by example, all the guruji’s, who taught me to meditate and  focus on my breath, my son who suffered respiratory problems, taught me to value by breath, my husband who gives me space to breathe and be myself, my daughter who brings in joy and happiness and all my  friends who are my support and inspiration.

Be Happy& Be Grateful!

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